I think if these stories were more believable, they might be horrifying enough to make someone react out of fear but they wrote these to be so abstract and incredulous that it's hard not to laugh about them.

Now we're getting to the right questions :)
Yes they were good at telling fiction stories. Probably every culture in history has used fiction stories to communicate stuff. The difficult bit is looking at it from 4000 years later and trying to figure out which bits were history and which bits were fiction or poetry or apocalyptic or whatever.
But just because something is fiction doesn't mean it can't be in some sense TRUE. There are times when fiction can be truer than fact. There are times when poetry communicates truth way better than boring factual prose. A picture tells a thousand words. A song can make you feel and understand some things better than a history book can. A love song might be more accurate than a psychologist's report on what love is. The Adam and Eve story is meant to be seen as true not because it happened but because it happens all the time. It's all of our story. We all at times choose to be selfish rather than trust God. Sorry I didn't mean that to sound preachy - just trying to explain how the story works.

beneames

I am a person that looks at things with no bias.
And I tend to not ignore a story just because it has no evidence to support it.
What I do is find a possible way of how something like that could happen.
Then I try to get the most likely scenario of how it could have happened.

The Adam and eve story could be the only part in the bible which actually could have happened.
Btw the bible copies the story from the Sumerian text(just for your info)
Abraham was a Sumerian that went to Egypt with his family.(it makes sens that some tales were taken from Sumerian myths/legends)

The jews were a bunch of people from all over the place and YaHWeH grouped them together to make a new faction.

I am ok with all this and much more.

You are considering most things that don't fit well your idea as stories or fiction with the wrong approach.

You need to be less biased about it and analyse it from a probability standpoint.

Given the evidence that we most likely came from the same female(mutation hypothesis), the story of Adam and Eve is still a possible scenario.
Maybe we just got the wrong definition of GOD?
Or maybe religion is making God to be more then it was.

Out of ignorance we tend to see things we do not understand as god.

"The Adam and Eve story is meant to be seen as true not because it happened but because it happens all the time."
What happens all the time?
The story of adam and eve is about Eve touching things she shouldn't(in the bible it was represented as an apple/tree) but in the Sumerian texts is represented as knowledge.
Also, god in the bible did not punish Adam and Eve, he just told them that now that you want to experiment with things, you can do that outside of the Eden, and that Eve will learn that to make babies it will hurt.

It is like saying:
You wanted the bike, now lean to paddle.
It is not a punishment, but a consequence of someones choice.

Eve wanted to learn and procreate, the god(with a small g) didn't want her to do so in his Eden.

That is the story of Adam and Eve.
And no, they weren't the first humans. At least not according to the bible.

Your idea of 'trust God' comes from bias of the new testament where when reading the old testament, you need to remove that bias to think clearly.
In the old testament one is not even sure if the Abraham god is Yahweh or not.
Moses himself asks him if he is the same god because Moses did not trust him.

You really need to be honest with yourself and try to view Yahweh and the Christian god as 2 different persons.

If you at least consider the possibility, you will start to realize that the 2 gods really have nothing in common.

well, I accept your apology, I know how hard that is for most people.
I admire your clarity in most of your posts too.
In fact it was a double edged sword when you jumped in our last argument. I just felt too pressured and acted too defensive.
For that I apologize too.
I am happy to debate any argument you would like.

"I feel I'm actually pretty good at being fair with the opinions I have and the flexibility I apply to them."
Yea, I agree you indeed are.

"I know I have certain opinions about things and while trying to keep an open mind I constantly remind myself that if I have an opinion at all, this makes me biased"
Awc......
Here you have touched the door of a library my friend.
This subject opens up many debatable arguments including psychology, bias, opinion and language.
That being said, you are correct and not correct at the same time depending on one's concept of the term Bias and opinion.

here I will try to make this as simple as possible.

There are 2 ways of understanding this. One is from a definition of the term Bias and an other from a psychological stand point.

But first lets start by stating what I meant when I replied to Beneames:

"I am a person that looks at things with no bias."

My unclear claim(which i could have phrased better) was in reply to this;

"But just because something is fiction doesn't mean it can't be in some sense TRUE. "

I didn't mean that I have no bias, I meant that I am capable of removing my bias and analyse it as if I am trying to support the idea, then I try to see the idea without any knowledge at all as if i am new to the idea.
This is a psychological stand point, which I will explain later.

So let us start with the term Bias:
"inclination or prejudice for or against one person or group, especially in a way considered to be unfair."
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/bias

So basically bias is prejudice for or against an argument.
now about your claim of:
"I know I have certain opinions about things and while trying to keep an open mind I constantly remind myself that if I have an opinion at all, this makes me biased."
Is taking into assumption that bias is part of your opinion, which I agree.
Though were we disagree is in the assumption that your final decision(your current opinion) is based on the bias.

This is not an obvious subject.
There are many shades of bias, not just 1 type and all have different attributes that effect them.
Bias is build on your previous experiences/opinion, this seems to be common in every type of bias.

I will try to explain this the best I can.
Example 1:
I had 10 girlfriends and all were blond and dumb. now I have to choose between a blond a brunette.
(lets not make it complex, and not enter in objectives and taste for simplicity sake)
Option 1:
I choose to follow my bias and opt for the brunet since a blonde has more chances to be dumb.(if i like intelligence in girls)
I am making the assumption that the colour of the hair has something to do with intelligence.
Option 2:
I recognize that my previous experiences with blonde girls has 0 effect on the chances of getting an intelligent girl and choose by some other aspect and ignore the hair.

It doesn't matter which option I choose, the difference is that this shows that your current opinion is different then your previous opinion(bias). Your current opinion may choose to follow your bias or not.(you might be influenced on some levels or none at all)

So when I said "looks at things with no bias.", I was talking about my Current opinion.

Example 2:
I am a fan of Brazil(true), now I might be of the opinion that the Brazil keeper is the best of the world.
Now my bias may be well founded and he may be really the best keeper.
So when the goals start coming in, I would start finding real reason why this disaster is happening.
I might be right in my calculations.
After the result is 7..0 against Brazil I might still be convinced that he is the best goal keeper but the truth of the matter is, that I wish he was doing better and will try to find every possible reason why he took 7 goals.(bad defense, etc)
The problem here is very simple, my bias is hindering my judgment, not because I am wrong but because my bias is blinding me to see the bigger picture.
He might truly be the best goal keeper of the world but is he the best goal keeper for that particular game?
A more lucky goal keeper that guesses correctly where to jump by luck in at least 1 of the 7 goals would have been surly better.
This kind of bias is hard to spot and requires real study of the self to manage to get rid of it.
It just happens without you know it.
So this is in part the bias you were referring to here:
"remind myself that if I have an opinion at all, this makes me biased."
The way I found to get rid of it is explained later on in the psychological aspect.
Christian apologetics suffer from this type of bias too.

Then there is the psychological aspect which is a bit more complex.
Since I cannot talk about how other people brain works when formulating a current opinion i will stick to myself here
This aspect is debatable;

So I view my mind as a democracy where different aspects like bias, knowledge(information), other people opinions, my attitude, my inner character, etc... all have a say in the result of my choice of my current opinion. Like playing a tug of war.
The thing I do is create an other aspect I call the 'neutral me'.
How do I do this?
The concept is this, see what my usual/common/bias opinion is about the matter and try to attack it in the most harsh way as if I really must humiliate this bastard(me). This requires a level of honesty with oneself which is not that hard for some people.

Example:

"My common/bias/openion is that there are no trees on the moon."
Seems obvious does it?

To attack this claim in the worst possible way is to do something like this:

"What do you consider a tree? You were not specific enough? Generalizing is typical of a bad argument.
Have even been on the moon to claim such a claim? believing others is a bad argument.
Have you explored the moon to be sure of your claim?
How do you know there isn't a secret base on the moon that has some experimental trees?
How do you know that their ain't some tree buried inside the moon?(like meteorites)
What makes you think that the moon is even real?(what you see could just be an illusion or a misunderstood science)
You might be just dreaming this reality?"

I can go on.....

Then construct the "Neutral Me" from a fair balance of the probability of those while still not excluding the possibility of any of them.

In the end my claim will surly not be that "there are no trees on the moon" but a more humble and open answer like:

'As far as I know 'they' have not found any trees on the moon yet."

This may be considered an unbiased opinion, since it is humble enough to accommodate the possibilities at your current knowledge.

You might still be wrong without knowing but you are not considered biased but misinformed.

As i said this argument is debatable so feel free to disagree but I feel that this is an unbiased way of approaching any argument.